


Parade Rest

by Rubynye



Series: One Idea, Four Relationships [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Boss/Employee Relationship, Breakup Sex, Compersion, Cross-Generation Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Finn & Rey mentioned, Hair-pulling, Last Time, Mentor/Protégé, Multiple Relationships, Oral Sex, Past Leia Organa/Han Solo, Penis In Vagina Sex, Service Top, Singing, Superior/Subordinate, not a story about jealousy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-07 04:07:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16401023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: “It’s not a punishment,” Leia says, so gently Poe has to close his aching eyes. “For either of us.”





	Parade Rest

**Author's Note:**

> Before _The Last Jedi_ came out there was an idea that our heroes would, or at least might, have some halcyon weeks or months on D’Qar to gather themselves after the events of _The Force Awakens_. This story is set during that span of time; I decided I don’t care that it didn’t actually exist, because it’s so useful. :)
> 
> Also, thanks to Dsudis, Inepshieldmaid and Gloss for so much inspiration as I wrote this. So very much.

_Her princess eyes_ , Poe always calls that look, at least to himself. As the evening deepens over their slice of D’Qar, the members of General Organa’s council begin standing and stretching and saying their goodnights, and Leia flicks her keen gaze towards Poe, giving him the order he’d obey even if he didn’t desperately hope for it every time. _Stay._

So he stays, casually popping in and out of her sitting room, yawning with others, gathering up flimsies and maps. When just Admiral Ackbar is left and Leia’s smiling as they chat, Poe resorts to the old trick of hiding in the ‘fresher. It gives him the chance to peel out of his clothes, anyway. He hesitates at his belt for a moment, wondering if Leia might want to watch him undress, direct him or strip him herself, but tonight he just feels like being naked, like presenting himself to her bare and ready.

As Poe waits he looks himself over in the mirror, poking at his hair, making sure his face is clean, rubbing a hand across his chin, which is dark as usual but not too sandpapery. Eventually, running out of anything else to check, he has to look himself in the eye, has to think about what they’re about to do. It’s been a little while, if he doesn’t count last week. He made it back from Jakku more a formation of fragments than actually whole, grieving and broken open, too raw to be touched, and Leia didn’t touch him. Time and work helped, getting Finn back helped, blowing the Starkiller out of space helped, even if not soon enough for the Hosnian system, for Han Solo, for anyone.

Poe rests his hands on the edges of the standard little sink. He knows he can do better than last week’s few frantic minutes in her office, still in their clothes, draped over her desk. When Leia sat up afterwards she winced and he winced to see it, and she said dryly, “That straightened my spine,” adjusting his jacket collar before dismissing him. 

It wasn’t what he wants to give her, nothing like what she deserves. It can’t be like it was before, Poe is old enough to know. But he looks up at himself again and swears tonight will be better, will be beautiful. 

Finally, finally, the front door hisses shut. Poe lines up his boots, crosses his arms, and waits another moment or seventy until Leia calls his name. She’s still in the sitting room, and when he comes back around the corner he finds her in the corner of her plumpest couch, legs crossed, still dressed. Her eyes widen, then narrow precipitously, but he can see her pupils flare wide as she takes him in.

“Dameron,” she says, and it doesn’t sound like _come here_ , but he does anyway. He kneels before her, formerly his favorite place to be in the galaxy, even edging out _Black One_ ’s cockpit. Now it’s in a tie, but with extremely good company. 

“Poe,” Leia murmurs, softer, as he presses his cheek to her inexplicably clothed knee, cradling her boot in both hands as he awaits permission to remove it for her. “You’re quiet.”

“Keeping my ears open,” he tells her, looking up at her above him, the soft curves of her body, her squared shoulders, the stardust grey hair framing her weary face as she looks down at him from smudged-in eyes. “Awaiting orders,” he goes on, and her laugh-crinkles deepen, her mouth softens into a line halfway to a smile.

“Poe,” Leia repeats, as if trying to say something else, and a little spike of worry jabs into Poe’s gut. _Initiative, flyboy,_ he tells himself as he eases her boot off, peels down her stocking, kisses her knee and reaches for her other foot.

She could pull it away, she could push him away. She doesn’t. She sighs, and as she lets him pull that boot off too she pushes her hand into his hair, fingers splaying as they sink into his curls. Under her hands, his hair never feels unruly, he never feels without purpose. Everything just feels right.

He slides his hands up her legs, calves and knees, thighs and hips, warm skin beneath sturdy cloth, and doesn’t realize he’s closed his eyes until her other hand strokes his forehead and curves to his cheek. He looks forward, watching for her navel as he peels her pants and panties down, and she huffs but plants her feet and lifts her hips for him, letting him pull her pants to the floor. He strokes and nuzzles his way back up her legs, both her hands in his hair, her skin fine silk beneath his lips, slightly loosened by time. He kisses her belly, sliding his open mouth along the blurred tracks of her stretch marks, and can almost taste all her experiences, all her life.

“I have a bunk, you know,” Leia says, her voice lower, deeper, richly warm. Poe smiles into the creases of her hip and she closes her fists in his hair. “We can’t do this on the couch.”

Poe’s heart rises behind his ribs, defying gravity. “Why not?” he asks, like he asks every time. 

“Because,” Leia answers, and now he can hear a laugh’s submerged ripples in her voice, “my staff need to sit on this couch.”

“They’ll be lucky,” Poe says between kisses along the tops of her thighs, her belly, the silvered border of her mound, “to sit in such an honored spot.” One day, just because, he’ll convince her to fuck him on her couch.

“Poe,” Leia says more sternly, tugging his hair like reins. “Bed.” He clambers up, maybe not quite so gracefully as when he was first her beau, but instead of standing up he leans in, gripping the couch’s back, closing his eyes again as Leia pulls him in. His scalp sparks, her wrists bracket his ears as she delves into his mouth, and he moans shamelessly into the kiss. For a moment Poe thinks about Finn’s earnest lips and Leia’s confident press, as he surrenders to sensation, letting himself make noise for her.

“Let me carry you?” he whispers over her wet mouth, feeling her scoff, feeling her smile.

“I can walk,” she insists, but she’s already released his hair, already sliding her arms behind his neck.

“Yeah, but you should ride.” Poe gathers her up, her back against one arm, her knees over the other, and lifts her to his chest, her hip pressed cushiony to his belly. She flashes him that princess smile, time and distance vanishing for a moment, revealing the incandescent girl who reignited the Rebellion and shone from adolescents’ bedroom walls across the galaxy, including Poe’s.

“Ridiculous,” Leia murmurs, and Poe kisses the soft crown of her head, succeeds in not tripping over her boots, and carries her around the corner to her sleeping quarters. Leia looks where they’re going, her arm slung around his shoulders, her other hand pressed to his chest, fingertips touching his mother’s ring. Poe inhales the soft sweetness of her hair and simply enjoys getting to hold her for however long she’ll let him.

The small reading lamp softly lights the room, along with starlight from beyond the closed window. When he lets her down onto her bunk Leia reaches behind her neck and unfastens her top so Poe can pull it over her head, then peels off her camisole and drops it on the floor with artful carelessness. Poe smiles, because she’s beautiful and he’s trying for infectious joy, and when Leia smiles back, pressing her hand to his jaw, warm triumph blooms inside him. The sense-memory of a broader hand cupping his face buoys him even higher, and he bends to share everything with her, putting all he can into the kiss. 

Leia kisses him readily, but not as strongly as before, and she pulls back too soon, too far. Familiar lines crease in between her eyes as she murmurs, “I should,” looking at him almost as seriously as when she sent him to Jakku.

“Let me make you feel good?” Poe offers in a rush, daring to reach up to her braided crown. “I could—“

Leia halts him with a little head shake, with her fingertips on his knuckles. “It’s all right,” she says, smiling over a secret, her eyes still too sad. “Come here,” she finally orders, and pulls him in for another kiss.

Since she stopped his hands from going up Poe sends them down, lets them wander over the silky fineness covering her shoulder blades and the plushness over her ribs, until she laughs and bites his lip and swats his shoulder. “Tickles,” she mutters, and he grins into her cheek and flattens his hands, just shy of her breasts, as he settles onto his knees, his back twinging just enough to ground him.

His hands want her breasts but he pushes his face there, smearing openmouthed kisses across their softness, and Leia’s sigh sounds more like interest and less like exhaustion, her fingers digging into his hair and curving behind his nape. She grants him the edges of her nails, fine bright lines raked down over his spine, and he moans around her perking nipple, tingling all the way to his toes curling against the floor. 

As much as he’s enjoying himself, and is he ever, Poe pays attention to the messages in Leia’s hands, the precise roughness of her breaths. Sometimes she likes him pushy so she can push back, and last week she yanked and clutched at him and swore in three languages, but right now maybe she’ll accept a little pampering.

Just as he thinks so, closing his teeth lightly around said nipple, she shudders, sucks in a deeper breath and tugs his hair again. “Poe,” she murmurs, and he resists the urge to say _that’s me_ , “don’t you want to come up here?”

“Wherever you want me,” isn’t actually the right answer, as she frowns the slightest bit, cupping the back of his head, squeezing his shoulder. “Do you want—?”

“Shh,” she tells him, and “it’s too much,” and, “how you’re looking at me. I’m just a woman.”

She looks sadder than ever, her eyes infinite as the sky, and effortlessly regal, and his heart both aches and soars. “No ordinary woman,” he answers, and at least that wins her smile.

“I’m sure you say that to all the sentients,” Leia says, more lightly, and as Poe grins he presses closer between her knees.

“Oh, no, not at all,” he murmurs, leaning in hopefully. “I customize my sweet-talk.” Easing her hold into petting, she lets him snug back in and kiss between those deep breasts, above her tireless heart..

She’s still herself, though, never so easily distracted. “You still haven’t told me what you want.” 

Poe doesn’t look up as he considers, pressing his cheek to her tender belly. He knows he can’t get the worshipfulness off his face, wishes she would take it as her due, that she could be happy. “To kiss all of you I can reach,” he breathes into her skin, and hopes it’s enough, not too much.

Leia sighs relief, relaxing a little, and Poe wonders what answer she expected. “Carry on, then,” she says, briskly enough to brace against.

Before, Poe might have replied, _Aye aye, General_. Now he just sighs her name into the crease of her thigh, curving his arm around her hips, nuzzling downwards, inwards. She shifts forward to meet his mouth, and he can feel her gaze like sunlight on his bowed head and shoulders. Memory and desire crash and merge as he remembers learning what she likes, learning so much from her about how to please people with his mouth, sucking gently as he eases her open with vertical flicks of his pointed tongue. 

Sometimes she wants his fingers, sometimes he wants to feel her clench and ripple around them, but right now he doesn’t think, doesn’t plan. He shivers between his throbbing untouched cock and sweetly aching scalp as he drowns himself in her damp redolence, lavishing his tongue along each soft, slick fold, as she pulls steadily on his hair and her voice roughens breath by deepening breath. 

Her nails rasp sparks across his scalp as she exhales a soft moan, then a firmer one, and Poe echoes with the very edge of his teeth along plumped, wetted flesh, strokes his tongue along the same path and inhales so fiercely his cock brushes his belly, licking upwards into the convergence —

—and Leia jerks his head back with both hands, a searing yank that ricochets down his spine, tightening his skin all over, his moan pushing out loud into the hushed air. “Oh,” he gasps, a little disoriented, and “Leia?” as he blinks wet eyelashes open, as she unwinds a hand from his hair.

She’s looking down at him, unblinking and fierce as a raptor, as she rubs her thumb beneath his lip, along his soaked chin. “Poe,” she replies, a thousand things in his name, in her voice.

“But,” Poe protests, hands full of her hips, her hand soft on his prickling cheek, “but you didn’t—“

As her smile unfurls she presses her thumb over his lower lip and he helplessly sucks on it, licking around it like he meant to encircle her clit. “You have such a wonderful mouth,” she tells him, as warmly as when he pulls victory from the fire, “but right now I want all of you.”

With that she tips forward and lands on him, in his arms. 

Poe laughs as Leia bears him down to flat on his back, the floor squeaking-smooth under his skin. “Wasn’t there something about a bed?”

“Shut up, Dameron,” Leia orders fondly, “and grab a pillow.” 

“Yes, ma’am!” Poe grins at how her eyes flare and her chin firms, at the charge flooding through him. He reaches up and she slides her hands down, the edge of nails down his throat making him shudder as he gropes for the pillow. “Uh,” opens out into a loud gasp as she flicks both his nipples, smirking at him, “Iiiii…” as her palms stroke down his torso, taking his measure, as his back throbs and abs tingle with the angle he’s tilting into. “Wow, that’s —“ he can’t say _distracting_ or her smirk’ll open into a laugh and he’ll be no better than a kid, all poise lost. “There!” He finally grabs the pillow, dragging it with him as he lets himself drop flat again and she pushes her hands up his tensed belly and heaving chest, up the veins of his throat as his head tips back and she rocks down slickly along his cock and he groans from his depths. “Oh, oh fuck. Leia.”

“That’s the plan,” she says, somehow crisply, as she sinks both hands into his hair. “Bring that here?” As she shifts her weight and he follows her into a roll, his knees hitting the floor, her thighs soft and warm around his hips. ”Yes, there,” as Poe tucks the pillow under her hips, and she rubs the heel of her hand over his temple.

“Really?” Poe has to ask, pushing against her pull over his scalp, against the rush in his blood. This is the only way she ever feels small to him, lying beneath his taller body, when he has to tuck his chin to his chest so he can look her in the eye. “Wouldn’t you rather ride a pilot and save a ship?”

Leia actually laughs at that, teeth gleaming, crinkles fanning out around her sparkling eyes. “That was terrible,” she purrs, pulling his hair, pulling him in, and he gasps and nods, his eyes fluttering shut as he kisses her. “Get to it,” she murmurs over his upper lip and kisses him again, teeth-first.

Poe knows what he’s doing, not least because of all she taught him. He can lean on one arm and guide himself into her, satiny strength and slick heat, he can restrain his hips and sink in slowly, trying to go easy. But Leia dents sharp sweet pain into his lip and drags on his hair like a two-fisted throttle, the burn rushing under his skin and along all his nerves, and all Poe can do is moan and shove in balls deep, the slam vibrating through both their bodies, echoing into her voice puffed against his mouth. He means to be gentle, he really does, unlike last week, but Leia growls over his tongue and digs her heels into his ass and her nails into his burning scalp, delving into his mouth like a ripe fruit, tasting of heat and command, and once again Poe can only obey her, body and soul.

It doesn’t take very long, his hips pistoning as they groan into each other, as she rocks into his thrusts, cushiony and demanding. Her knees thump his arms and he scoops them up in his elbows, pushing the angle deeper; she cries out and clenches and flutters around him, jerks his head down and bites his ear like she did last week, but then it was to muffle herself and now it’s to dent her signature into his skin. 

Her scream swoops high, crashing over his mind, ebbing breath by panting breath to lilting moans as she grips his shoulder and clenches her fist in his hair. “Poe,” she breathes in his ear, “My Poe,” and that’s it, the final push over the edge into freefall pleasure as he comes for her in long gouts, streaming out under her command.

Poe shudders to a stop, moaning helplessly, head hanging, and Leia strokes his nape and shoulders, hums between her own gasps, kisses every bite from his ear to his bottom lip and down to his chin, until he can firm up his stunned-slack mouth to kiss her back tenderly. He wobbles and tugs out and drops himself beside her, his shoulders pressed to the shelves beneath her bunk, his arm slung across her waist, their thighs pressed together. As they suck down air in unison Poe shifts, just enough to spread his fingers across the softness padding her ribs and tuck his thumb beneath her plush breast, to lay his other arm out above her head for her to rest on she wants. 

After a couple moments Leia squirms, dragging the pillow out from under her, and tips towards him, pushing her head up onto his shoulder. Poe pulls his mouth into a slow smile as he opens his eyes.

Leia regards him intently, her eyes very dark with tiny highlights like distant stars. She reaches up to stroke back the hair stuck to his forehead, and Poe sighs a little at the comfort, not minding the hard floor beneath him or the ropy press of her still-tight braids into his skin, when he has the banked fire glowing inside him and Leia resting beside him. He knows she has more orgasms in her, thinks maybe in a little while she’ll let him use his mouth on her again, and smiles a little wider at the hope.

But that’s not quite how she’s looking at him, and she keeps on searching his face for awhile, until she gives his cheek a final pat and shifts back from his hold. As she pushes herself up her forehead creases, and the floor _is_ hard. “Here,” Poe says, pushing up on his elbow, offering his hand, but she shakes her head, waving off his help as she tips upright.

Leia pulls her legs beneath her, sits up straight, and says softly, “Right now I’m really tempted to let us have fucked our way out of this conversation.”

Alarms go off in Poe’s gut and behind his eyes. A broken stabilizer, a burst fuel tank, something catastrophic opening beneath him, as he shoves up off the floor, the bunk smacking him in the back. “Which conversation?”

Leia looks up at him now, just enough to raise her chin, as she sets her hands in her lap. “The conversation,” she says after a long moment, her words just a little slower than usual, “where I explain why this was the last time I’m taking you to bed.”

 _Oh no, no no no,_ whistles through his empty brain, atmosphere screaming around an uncontrolled descent. “You didn’t,” he babbles desperately, “take me to bed, I mean. We’re on the floor.”

Leia doesn’t dignify that weak try with more than a brief twist of her lips. “I ask too much of you,” sets his head desperately shaking, his fists clenching till his knuckles creak. “I ask too much of everyone here, because it’s necessary, but especially of you.” 

He aches to touch her, to kiss her, to prove himself to her until she changes her mind. “Nothing we’re not willing to give,” he tells her, as earnestly as he’s ever spoken in his life, willing her to feel it.

Leia swings her eyelashes down, closing her eyes for another long moment, and Poe hopes fiercely with every heartbeat, but when she looks up again he sees not the Princess but the General. “I know,” she says softly, implacably, “but it’s my job to determine how best to spend those assets, and _this_ ,” as she waves one hand between their naked bodies, “I need to give back to you.”

Inside Poe’s head is nothing but a continuous explosion, conflagration, destruction. After all these years, after everything, now most of all, he can’t just leave her. He should grit his teeth and nod and follow orders, but his mouth falls open and, “But I want you to have me,” tumbles out, soft and wobbly. 

Lines are sinking in between Leia’s eyes as she smiles, shaking her head again as she looks down, and Poe’s arms strain with the effort of not touching her. She takes a long, deep breath, the kind that steadies her before she asks her staff for options, asks him for ideas, but this time he’s the disaster he can’t solve for her. “Poe,” she says, “I can’t let you just pour yourself into me, especially not now. You’re still healing.”

“So are you,” Poe counters, spreading his hands. “We all are—“

“Not like you,” Leia blocks. “And not like Finn.” 

Finn, who fell into Poe’s life like a meteor and saved him and his mission, who’s astonished him with insight and stunned him with devotion. Poe blinks, seeing his other lover on the backs of his eyelids, beautiful and scarred and asleep right now in his bunk. 

Leia tilts her head a little. Poe can see his own stupid face reflected in her wise eyes, and momentarily tastes a milligram of the frustrated admiration Han Solo always radiated. She thinks she’s right. She knows she’s right. But Poe knows to the last micron what he can do. “Finn,” he repeats. “I love him.” Which Poe should tell him sometime. “But…” _But I’m still yours._ “I can balance my commitments. You know that.”

Leia sighs, her hand flickering in an exasperated little loop. “That’s never been the issue. You have the biggest heart in the galaxy,” as she touches him over it, fingertips there and gone. “But none of us know how much time we have, only that it won’t be enough.” 

As if he doesn’t know? “But that’s why!” Poe leans forward, down, so he can look up at her. “That’s why I can’t —“ he swerves, rephrasing — “I don’t want you to be alone.” skims the edge of the ragged crater left when her son ripped her husband out of existence, nearer than he should dare.

Leia’s eyelashes gleam wetly, her eyes crinkling, her mouth tightening and easing as she deliberately pulls her hand away from him, setting it back in her lap before she responds. “Would it help to know I need this too?”

“If I believed that,” is the wrong answer, drawing her eyebrows down, tightening her mouth again.

“Believe me,” she says in her command voice, firmer than a slap, and Poe winces away.

“I do,” he concedes, slumped back against those drawers. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I do believe you. Leia.”

She nods graciously. “I should hope so.” And softens again. “It would be so easy,” and she sounds _wistful_ , and Poe almost can’t breathe around the lump rising in his throat. “So easy to just soak in you, in everything you offer.” She looks at him like a caress now, through those lashes. “But I need to recollect myself. I need to know I can do that, so I can do everything else.”

Poe sets his jaw. He knows he looks mulish, but he’d look worse if he tried to hide it from her. Leia reaches out again, settling her hand on his cheek; he half wants to pull away, and presses into her hold.

“Last week,” she tells him, “do you remember?” Of course he does, but she reminds him. “I reached for you.” And for a moment her small pale hand, moving towards his face, became a splayed black glove digging into his mind, clawing him open. “You flinched from me.” Poe can’t look at Leia now, glaring at his own knees in shame as he remembers bouncing off the back wall of her office, the dismay naked on her face. “And then you apologized, for having a flashback to the mission I gave you.” 

He ran back to her babbling furious regrets, he kissed her hands and her cheek and her mouth, and she made a soft high sound against his lips as he lifted her onto her desk. “It was the least I could do,” he mutters, under her soft hand, from his sunken heart.

“For being hurt?” Leia’s voice is so warm Poe’s eyes sting. “I was going to apologize, actually, but you kissed me. You can be very distracting.” Poe looks up at that, and finds her eyes shining.

He sets his hand on hers, feeling it doubly. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m your superior officer. But I can acknowledge. I sent you out and you came back wounded.” She pauses, letting the identity of who injured him hang between them, and Poe keeps his mouth shut and just nods. “We both need to heal in ways we can’t in each other’s arms.” 

“So this is for my own good,” comes out sullen, which he didn’t want.

Fortunately she forgives him with a smile. “Yes, and mine as well.” He nods, trying to lift his eyebrows, to look convinced, but Leia can’t be fooled. “It’s not a punishment,” she says, so gently Poe has to close his aching eyes. “For either of us.” 

All Poe can do is clutch her hand and listen to her words, swallow against the lump strangling him and exhale, “I understand.” 

Leia lifts her other hand to cup his face, tugs him gently towards her and kisses him between his eyes. “Now what I need you to do,” she says, firmly enough for him to brace against, “is to go wash up, get dressed, and go straight back to your quarters.” Poe’s eyes flare open in alarm, even though he shouldn’t want to stay, but Leia’s gaze is undeniable and he can’t argue. “Not to the hangar, not to get drunk. Go back to your quarters. To Finn. When he’s awake, make your report to him.”

“Yes, General,” Poe says, and she smiles approvingly, and lets go. He stands and offers his hand, and at least she takes hold and lets him help her up off the floor, even if she stands as straight as if in uniform, an infinite arm’s length between them.

Poe would really like to look at her beautiful nudity one last time. He doesn’t. He stands at parade rest, hands hooked together behind his back, waiting to be dismissed, and Leia looks only at his face for a last long moment before she says, “Goodnight, Commander.”

He can’t say a word, but he nods, and salutes her, and goes.

* * * * * * * 

Heels against the wall, palms on the bed frame, Finn stretches and holds the stretch and just _enjoys_ feeling well again. He knows the Resistance isn’t like the First Order, but there’s knowing and there’s _knowing_. Waking up after such a severe injury was a pleasant surprise, waking up to Poe’s beautiful worried face beside his was a wonderful shock, and being allowed to heal at his own pace has felt like what he imagines a vacation would. He aches pleasantly all over, happily sore from his PT, the scar on his back taut but not binding his motion.

He can move, he can stretch, he’s alive, lying in a softer bed than he ever thought he could have, happier than he dared imagine when he decided to run.

Finn rolls to his belly and considers today’s addition to his letter for Rey. He can’t really think of anything else, so he saves what he has, ready to slip the holopadd onto the windowsill and go to sleep. Poe said he was meeting with the General till late, not to wait up.

As if the thought summons him the door opens, letting in Poe’s voice on the air. He’s singing as he enters, a liquid stream of words in a language Finn doesn’t know, and he sits up to listen. The song is slow, sonorous, rolling with vowels, and Poe’s singing voice is light and clear, on the high side for a man, so beautiful Finn’s chest hurts.

It’s an irrational reaction to an irrational practice, and Finn’s so happy with both he aches, pleasure and pain all tangled up. He smiles as Poe casually toes off his boots and hangs up his jacket, eyelashes casting inky shadows on his cheeks, still singing. As he unfastens his shirt Poe rolls the song between his parted lips, the melody curling around itself into a final flourish; he pulls the shirt off and finally looks up, smiling at Finn, who smiles all the wider as he breathes Poe’s name.

“Hey, buddy,” Poe says, shucking his trousers, but something’s a little different in his face, a bit off in his smile. Finn feels his own fading despite the handsome sight of Poe half-dressed in tank and shorts. “Still awake?”

“Working on my letter to Rey.” Poe nods, brushing two fingertips over the ring he wears suspended around his neck, and as he comes over Finn examines his face. There are lines furrowed under his curls, the arcs deepened between his nose and mouth. “BB-8 powered down awhile ago.” He looks tired as he sits on their bunk; he’s smiling gently, but it’s not reaching his deepened, red-rimmed eyes. _Sad,_ Finn concludes, beginning to worry. _He looks sad._

Noticing Finn’s stare, Poe rubs a hand across his face and through his hair. “I look okay? What is it?” His tank smells more richly of him than his skin, as if he just soniced then put back on the same clothes.

“You look good,” Finn says, because it’s true, and, “kinda tired,” because it might be useful. “I’m done writing, we can go to bed.”

Poe’s smile improves a little and he leans in for a kiss, settling a gentle hand on Finn’s shoulder, and Finn pushes against the bed to press in close. He knew before how kissing was defined, the kind of attachment it signified, how to use that information against targets. But there’s knowing and there’s _knowing_ , taking a breath and diving in, head tipping back and tilting for better angles, pressing together as deeply as both can. 

Poe always kisses Finn with single-minded intensity that rushes through him like an intoxicant. He almost forgets his observations until Poe sighs, flattening his hand into a little push as he backs off and looks down again, thick eyebrows tilted inwards. “Do you mind if we just sleep?”

Finn slides his mouth along Poe’s cheek, stubble sparking against his lips. “I’m not just here for the sex,” he murmurs into Poe’s jaw, to feel his smile before sitting back. “Though I do like the sex.”

Poe shows bright teeth, then pulls a deliberately silly pout. “You just _like_ it? I need to try harder.”

Finn would reply seriously but he can’t deny Poe a smile. “I look forward to it,” he says, “After we get some sleep.” Poe nods, turning to palm off the light, and Finn takes a moment to enjoy the shifting muscles in his back beneath the thin tank; then Poe turns back to him, but doesn’t lie down, instead taking Finn’s hand in his, meshing their fingers.

Poe breathes, and Finn waits, their hands and knees pressed together, Poe’s high-nosed profile silhouetted in the dim light. Eventually he says, “I need to… Finn, before we sleep. Can I tell you something?”

Finn nods, pressing shoulder to shoulder. Touching Poe is calming even though his words are worrying. “Of course.”

Poe inhales, still looking down. “Thanks. I should have told you this before. I meant to ask for clearance, I got an order.” His mouth ripples wider, but not with a smile. “The General and I, we don’t just have an on-duty relationship.”

That much is obvious. “I know,” Finn says, and Poe glances sideways at him, eyes glinting. “She doesn’t treat any of us as just on-duty.” 

Poe smiles now, nodding, but hangs his head again. “That’s her, that’s absolutely her. But also, I mean… for a long time now she and I had sex every so often.”

Finn is still waiting to hear Poe’s heavy secret, but this explains the sonic at least. “That makes sense,” somehow makes Poe twitch down to his fingers between Finn’s. “To strengthen the bond with a notable subordinate using pleasure and even intimacy.” Poe presses his other hand over his face, confusingly, so Finn makes sure to be as clear as possible. “And the General’s the sort of superior officer who takes care to obtain consent.”

Finn had more to explain but Poe looks up at him then, and even in the dimness he can recognize that particular wide eyed, tight-lipped expression. Poe makes that face when Finn mentions things that are obviously not part of his experience and which he obviously thinks shouldn’t be part of anyone’s experience. Until now Finn’s agreed with him about that latter part, but right now he’s still a bit confused.

As he often does after making that face, Poe touches Finn, pressing his face into Finn’s neck for a long moment, replying with warmth and solidity before he sits back to return to words. “We don’t actually do that here,” he says counterfactually, crinkles his eyebrows together, and rephrases. “I mean, we’re not supposed to. In the Resistance, or in the Republic Navy, or in general, people in the same chain of command aren’t supposed to be intimate. Too much potential for abuse.” Finn widens his eyes and Poe hastily adds, “Leia would never — I don’t feel abused, I mean. I’ve always wanted… this started a long time ago, before I joined the Resistance, and it’s not why I did. Coming here was the right thing to do.” That much is clear and true, and Poe could use some encouragement, so Finn nods. “But once I joined up we really shouldn’t have continued.”

“There’s what should be and there’s what is.” Finn shrugs. He knows he’s not very neutral towards the concept of rules right now, and that many are necessary, but this one seems a bit pointless if the wisest leader he’s ever met disregarded it. “Thank you for telling me about this sexual relationship,” he adds, and Poe makes a weird little sound deep in his throat. “Are you currently in any others? Besides the occasional thing with the pilots? Jessika told me about that.”

Poe grins and groans softly, butting his forehead against Finn’s shoulder. “I would kill her but she could take me,” he says. “No, no, I’m not in any others. I’m not even in that one anymore. Leia ended it.” Now his voice drops, his shoulders sagging, his fingers going lax between Finn’s. 

Now Finn knows, finally, not the facts but the actual truth. “Oh,” he says, squeezing Poe’s hand, and lifts his arm to wrap around Poe, who slumps against him, heavy as a casualty. “Oh. You don’t want her to. You didn’t want to end it.” After a lifetime of tightly rationed friendships and occasional rushed pleasures, Finn is wallowing in the new delight of limitless touches and smiles and conversations, in the universe Poe offers him to explore. But Poe’s been accustomed to freely making connections his whole life, he must hate having one cut. It must feel like a wound. As if he could stanch the bleeding, Finn lifts his hand with Poe’s to press them together over Poe’s heart, and his thumb brushes Poe’s ring. 

Poe wraps his hand around Finn’s wrist, clinging to him, sitting pressed to him for another long row of heartbeats before he says, low and hoarse, “Thank you. I admit, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong.”

Quite likely, but Poe sounds so hurt Finn hurts for him, until a new worry crashes into his mind and he hurts for himself. “This isn’t because of me,” he chokes out, horror gripping his throat. “I didn’t make you stop being her favorite?”

“No!” Poe’s already shaking his head, reaching up to grab Finn’s jaw, looking into his eyes. “Finn, no. She didn’t end our, affair, I guess, she didn’t end it because of you.” His grip eases, his eyelids sink. “Besides, I’m not her favorite.”

“That’s counterfactual,” Finn informs him. “Everyone I’ve talked to knows you are.”

Poe smiles, nods the concession, presses his cheek to Finn’s shoulder. “Okay, I won’t argue that one.” 

The next question comes to Finn, as insistent as the last, even more unwelcome. “I’m glad I’m not the reason she stopped,” he says slowly, and Poe hums a little. “But if … would she resume if we stopped?”

Poe goes as rigid as he was limp, grabs Finn’s shoulder and slams their mouths together like a blow. “No,” he demands, muffled by their lips, and kisses Finn harshly, setting his mouth throbbing. “No, no no,” and another hard kiss as Poe shakes in Finn’s hold, until Finn thinks to reach up and stroke his curls, softly spiraling under his palm. Poe gentles then, moaning low, still kissing Finn but less achingly, and Finn keeps petting him and kisses back as softly as he can, until Poe collapses again with a broken sigh. “No,” he murmurs into Finn’s throat. “No, Finn, no. I don’t ever wanna stop.” He kisses Finn’s pulse, and between the caress and the promise Finn trembles, his mind hazing, his heart pounding. “I’d only ever stop if you wanted to.”

“I don’t ever want—“ Finn starts, but Poe moans a negative and shakes his head under Finn’s chin.

He’s still shaking his head as he pulls back. “I can’t ask that —“ 

It’s Finn’s turn to interrupt. “You can ask anything of me,” he insists to this beautiful man who gave him his name, who took him in, who genuinely wants him as a person, not a prize or a weapon. 

Poe’s lips part as he presses his eyes shut, and when he looks up again they gleam wetly. “I love you,” he gasps, stabbing Finn through the heart with happiness. “Finn, I love you, and you just got your life back, I can’t ask you for forever.”

“Then how can you give it to me?” Finn insists, swept up in glorious irrationality. “If you won’t take it from me, when I love you too?”

Poe makes a pained noise and kisses Finn, forcefully but not as bruising as before, and presses their foreheads together like it would save talking. “Oh, buddy,” Poe murmurs. “You’re amazing. I don’t, I. Lemme start over.” Finn nods a little, not enough to dislodge this connection. “I’ve owned my life my whole life,” which sounds redundant but Finn gets it. “I can give it freely,” tightens Finn’s hands on his solid shoulder, around their meshed fingers. “And realistically, I can’t give you forever. There’s a war on, I don’t have that. But what I have is yours.”

Finn doesn’t know yet what peace would even look like, if it’s not Poe’s body and voice and love in the quiet nighttime. “I don’t have anything,” he tells Poe, “but what I have is yours, too.”

“You have everything.” Poe tips his chin up, and Finn kisses him, because they can. “I’m glad I have you,” Poe murmurs, smearing fierce lips along Finn’s cheek, and keeps talking. “So is Leia,” is a welcome surprise, breathed warm on Finn’s cheekbone. “She sent me to you.” 

He sounds a little calmer. Finn swallows hard and pushes down his own excitement, taking a five-breath, in and out. Pressing their foreheads together again, Poe joins him on the next one, and the next, in unison.

When he can manage it, Finn says evenly, “The General sent you to me? Now or when we first met?”

Poe smiles, bright in the dimness. “Just now,” he clarifies. “When we met, I don’t think even she saw you coming.” He tips back a little, sitting up straight, curling his fingers to Finn’s jaw. “But as soon as I told her about you she knew how I feel. I should’ve told you before.”

Poe is endlessly fascinating and endlessly confusing. “But you did,” Finn says, and watches his eyebrows arch up. “When I woke up you were sitting beside me. When you told me I should keep your jacket. When I took off that helmet and you looked at me like no one ever had.” Poe’s eyes are wide, huge, shining, just like when they met. “Should I have told you already that I knew, that I love you too?” Poe shakes his head, lips parted eagerly, and Finn finds words for his thoughts and keeps going. “The First Order, they called it ‘irrational attachment’, and told us to avoid it, that the untrained were susceptible, that it was a weakness we should exploit. I didn’t know until I met you, and then when I met Rey, how wrong they were, how strong love is. I like that strength.” Finn’s own words remind him that he can trust Poe with these thoughts, with everything. “I like sharing it with you.”

Poe nods slowly, smiling like a sunrise. “You’re amazing,” he says, which feels radiant inside Finn’s chest, and then more softly, “Maybe,” with eyes downcast, “maybe now I understand.” He looks up again, squaring his shoulders. “There’s one more piece I need to tell you.” 

“Then tell me,” Finn says, and Poe squeezes their still-joined hands.

“Last week,” he says, slowly again, “I had a flashback, while I was with Leia. To being tortured.” 

“Ow,” is all Finn can think of, trying to convey the sympathetic echo of pain inside him, and Poe nods, grimacing a little. “Oh, ow,” as he reaches up to sink his fingers into Poe’s soft curls, rubbing his fingertips across Poe’s scalp the way he’s learned Poe likes. “You went to Medical with this, right?”

“I’m going tomorrow,” Poe says, and when Finn narrows his eyes he grins, shrugging. “I promise. And… I had to tell you. Hopefully it won’t happen again, but, in case.” He rubs firm fingertips behind Finn’s nape, where he likes it. “I hope you don’t have any.”

“Me too,” Finn murmurs. “Just the nightmares so far. But sleeping with you helps with those.”

Poe’s eyes crinkle, but a yawn overtakes him before he can say anything, and he laughs softly in surrender. “Can we—?”

“Yeah.” They let go long enough to lie down together with a minimum of collisions and tangles. Eventually Finn rolls Poe sideways and tucks to his back, wrapping both arms and a leg around him as he vibrates with silent chuckles at being manhandled. “You okay?”

Poe sighs and stills, folding his arms tighter across Finn’s and squeezing. “I’m okay.”

Finn should sleep. He had a full day with another one tomorrow. Poe should sleep, since besides a full day he had an emotional shock. But Finn still has one question, turning it over in his mind, trying to decide if he should ask now or risk forgetting.

Poe hums a stretch of melody, the song from before, giving Finn permission to ask, “What is that? What you’re singing?”

“ _Historia de un amor,_ ” Poe murmurs. “An old Alderaanian song I learned from my father.” His voice is a little raspy, rough with meaning, and Finn nods between his shoulder blades. “It’s about a woman who went away.”

Finn squeezes Poe gently. “The General hasn’t gone away,” he reminds Poe, because it seems useful. “I think…” but he founders there, trying to find the words to convey his conviction that even if she ended this connection General Leia won’t let go of all her ties with Poe, that she still values her most notable subordinate. 

“Are you trying to tell me it’s gonna be okay?” Poe asks, and when Finn nods again Poe pulls one of Finn’s hands up to kiss his knuckles. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Finn answers softly, feeling wonderfully disproportionately warm.

“If you want I’ll sing you the whole thing.” Poe shifts a bit, aligning their bodies even more closely, touching his ring and then Finn’s wrist. “I should tell you about when I learned it.” Not sex right now, just intimacy, and Finn rests his cheek on Poe’s hair and basks in it. 

“I look forward to it. After you get some sleep.”

Poe hums agreeably, but keeps humming, low and sweet, and Finn drifts off to the soft flowing music of Poe's song.

**Author's Note:**

> “Historia de un amor” is a real and beautiful song by the artist Luis Miguel. I didn’t end up quoting the lyrics but listening to and reading this song definitely inspired me as I worked on this story.


End file.
